


The Punch of Supreme Friendship

by celinamarniss



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends: Thrawn Trilogy - Timothy Zahn
Genre: Echo chamber fandom, F/M, Fighting and Kissing, First Time, Lightsaber Duels, Luke Skywalker Punched Me in the Face and it was Awesome, Luke and Mara are competitive jerks, Miscommunication, Pining, Sparring, luke skywalker's implacable goodness, this is a very silly fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-14
Updated: 2017-06-14
Packaged: 2018-11-13 21:51:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11194164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celinamarniss/pseuds/celinamarniss
Summary: After he beats her in a sparring match, Luke is afraid that he may have ruined any chance of having a romantic relationship with Mara.





	The Punch of Supreme Friendship

**Author's Note:**

  * For [frangipani](https://archiveofourown.org/users/frangipani/gifts).



> This story was frangipani's idea. She wanted it to exist and now it does. 
> 
> All due credit should go to her for helping me brainstorm the plot (such as it is). She also helped work out the kinks in the story and came up with the title and some of the jokes. 
> 
> Happy birthday, friend.

_a kiss with a fist is better than none ([x](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il6CA-nqR-Y))_

 

  

“Show me what you’ve got, Skywalker.” Mara’s challenge ran out across the training room, a dry lilt to her voice as though she found the entire prospect amusing somehow. As Luke stepped onto the mats that lined the floor of the room, her expression shifted, the mocking smirk sliding away into the look of intense focus she wore whenever she engaged an enemy.

He opened his mind to the Force, allowing it to flow through him—from the press of his bare feet against the mat to the fierce mechanical hum of the lightsaber he held his his hand—and spread out through the practice room and toward the bright Force-presence of the woman who faced him across the floor, her own lightsaber, with its familiar blue blade, held in an loose guard. Mara eyed him steadily, as though she were calculating every single possible move before she sprung into action.

Their somewhat informal training—begun in less than ideal circumstances on Wayland—had continued in fits and spurts over the following months. In spite of what they’d been through together on Wayland, she kept her distance, and Luke wasn’t always sure where he stood with her. After Wayland he had thought that the loose apprenticeship they’d begun would continue, but work and Mara’s reluctance to publicly commit to the Jedi Order had kept them apart. While she did seem interested in improving her skills, she’d refused to commit to a more formal training structure, claiming that her new commitments to the newly-formed Smuggler’s Alliance kept her too busy. Getting her to show any interest in the more philosophical side of the Force had been a failure, though she accepted—if sometimes reluctantly—his instruction on practical exercises, particularly anything that could be used in combat. He’d been only too happy to give her copies of all his holos and notes on lightsaber technique, and he’d offered a few lessons before her last mission for Karrde had taken her away from Coruscant for months.

“I’ve been practicing,” she had said when she approached him that afternoon, newly returned from that mission. “In the _Wild Karrde’s_ hold. But remotes just aren’t the same.”

“How often?” he asked, trying to gauge how far she’d come in her self-taught training.

She seemed surprised at the question. “Every day,” she said, as though the answer were obvious.

Mara had come a long way since she’d killed C’baoth and fought his clone, when it had been her determination and sheer desperation had carried her though, and further since their first lessons on Coruscant in the aftermath of Wayland. Her technique was still rough and she hadn’t come close to mastering her form, but she moved with the grace of a dancer and the confidence of years of combat training as she threw herself into the duel with a passionate ferocity.

He’d _missed_ this.

“Try a broader sweep,” he suggested as he easily blocked a swing that came up short, a beginner’s mistake that left her open on her left side. Rather than take advantage of the opening, he fell back. “A Shii-Cho or Soresu slash.”

Instead, she spun, executing a near-flawless Jung-ma, parrying his strike and moving into his sphere of motion. As she forced his blade to the side, she swung her elbow into his face.

He dodged the blow just in time. “Hey!” he said, jumping back a few paces and out of her reach. He lifted a hand to call for a pause. “This is a lightsaber duel, not hand to hand.”

“So?” She eyed him as though she were still trying to calculate her next move even as she gave him the room to air his complaint. She was better at hand to hand combat than he was, and they both knew it.

“We’re working on your form, not hand to hand. Stick to saber technique.”

“Oh?” she tilted her head and regarded him coolly. “Did Vader just stick to sabers too?”

“No,” Luke huffed. If she thought Vader was a weak point, she was mistaken; he’d had come to terms with his father, and had certainly faced rougher verbals assaults than that.

But—it still stung that she’d brought up that particular ghost to taunt him. He was momentarily glad she wasn’t skilled enough to split her concentration and hurl every object in the room at him, as Vader had once done. She hadn’t learned that technique—yet.

“Isn’t it more useful integrate the two?” she challenged.

“It can be, but you have to nail down the basics of your form first,” he said. She tipped her head to the side, her attention fixed on him she listened to his points. “You tend to forget form in the heat of battle—I think it’s because you’ve had to fight dirty for too long, and you just fall back on hand to hand. If you encounter anyone with better lightsaber skills, than your current skills won’t mean much.”

Unspoken was the implication that if she’d had to engage with C’baoth on Wayland, she couldn’t have matched the master, as insane as he was.

“Fine,” she said, without, he noted, actually agreeing stick to form. “Are you done?”

He’d barely nodded and she was moving again, throwing a savage swipe in direction, the blue blur of her blade streaking across his vision. He deflected her blade with his own, forcing her back with ease, and she shifted into a crouch, sweeping a leg at his ankles in a move that felt more like a she was proving a point rather than actually trying to land a hit. He leapt backward.

“Mara, I don’t—”

She suddenly flipped the saber in her hand so that she held it in a backhand grip and slashed it sideways across his front. He dodged quickly enough, but she followed it with a kick that clipped his hip and he winced and twisted away. That was going to bruise.

What had started as a simple lightsaber exercise had turned into a fast and violent fight. He still was certain—reasonably certain—that he could match her without resorting to physical contact himself, that he could beat her using his blade alone. He felt a familiar competitive urge well up, one that he associated with his old fighter pilot days and hadn’t felt often since he’d given up that profession. He _would_ beat her, no matter how dirty she fought.

He recovered quickly enough to meet her next attack, as she pressed in close, their sabers creaking as they locked together. It was a terrible position for her, he knew; he was taller, heavier, and stronger, and she wouldn’t be able to hold out for long. He considered falling back for only second, and then pain shot up his leg as she stamped her heel into his foot. He yelped, staggering back, bringing up his saber to catch a flurry of blows as she pressed her advantage.

The Force still guided his actions, and he sensed an opening approaching and moved to follow the impulse before he’d thought it through. He shifted his lightsaber into his left hand and twisted her weapon to the side, his right fist coming up to smash across her left cheek. Her head jerked to the side and she staggered back, dropping her lightsaber.

It took a moment for it to sink in, and then Luke lunged forward, grabbing her shoulder to steady her, aghast at what he’d done. “Mara!”

She shook her head slightly, blinking, and lifted a hand to prod at the reddened mark on her cheek.

“Any double vision? Nausea?” He tried to catch her eye, but her head was still turned as she probed at her face. “Can I do anything?”

She gestured at the far end of the gym. “There’s ice…” He was across the floor before she’d even finished her sentence, yanking an icepack out of the first aid locker and hurrying back to where she stood.

“I can call a med droid,” he said as he offered her the ice pack. She took it and pressed it to her face.  

“No need,” she said, catching his arm. “I’m fine.”

“I’m so sorry, Mara.”

She finally met his eyes, her brow furrowing. “You don’t need to apologize, you didn’t break anything.”

The ice pack now covered the bright red mark he’d left on the side of her face, but he still winced inwardly at the thought of the bruise. He’d hit her hard. Not hard enough to need medical attention, but her face would definitely bruise.

He was beginning to feel a little sick as the guilt set in. He’d let things spiral out of control and _punched a student_. He’d punched _Mara._ He’d undone all the work of the last year of slowly building her trust and let his competitiveness take control and crossed a line.

She gave him a small nod. “You won.”

He reached out tentatively through the Force, expecting to feel sense her familiar, incandescent anger, but all he could feel was her surprise and something that felt almost like...satisfaction?

She sensed the probe, even as cautious as it was. “Stay out of my head, Skywalker,” she said, but there was no bite in it. The look she threw him was almost pleased, but he wasn’t sure he’d read her correctly. Even though she’d successfully baited him into falling back on hand to hand, he’d assumed she’d be angry at him for hitting her _in the face,_ or maybe just for beating her at the match. Mara didn’t like to lose.

Even if she wasn’t angry at him, he still wanted to make it up to her, somehow.  

“I’m supposed to go to Leia’s for dinner, after,” he said. “Why don’t you come?” Now she looked slightly confused. She wasn’t offended and she still hadn’t landed on anger, so he bumbled on: “It’ll be better than ship rations, or takeout, and Han and Leia would love to see you too.”

“I doubt that.”

“Yes, they would. Come.” He could still sense her reluctance, but she just shrugged.

“Okay, fine.”

\- -

After they’d showered and changed at the training gym, they made their way over to Han and Leia’s apartment. Luke spent the short trip agonizing over what to say to her, knowing that she would just be irritated by anything that might sound like an excuse for his behavior, but Mara seemed content to wait in silence that stretched between them.

The left side of her face was still red and starting to look slightly swollen, a stark physical reminder of his actions. Naturally, it was the first thing Han noticed as soon as he opened the door. “Whoa. What happened there?”

She raised her chin. “Skywalker did it.”  

“He sure did,” Han agreed with a slight wince as he examined her face. Luke felt himself flushing.

Han looked back at Luke. “You look okay,” he said. “What’d she do to you?”

“Nothing—I mean, she landed a few hits that are going to bruise,” he saw Mara perk up out of the corner of his eye, “but I’m fine.”

“If you say so.” Han didn’t even try to hide the smug grin that snuck onto his face. “Leia!” he shouted as led them into the apartment. “Luke and Mara are here.”

Leia appeared, engrossed in a datapad, weaving blindly around the apartment’s furniture by force of habit. When she looked up, her sharp gaze swept over the both of them and fixed on the left side of Mara’s face. “Mara! What happened?”

“Skywalker punched me in the face,” Mara said.

Luke wondered if there were any Jedi techniques for making the floor open up and swallow him. Perhaps bringing her to dinner hadn’t been his brightest idea.

Leia raised an eyebrow at him. “Luke?”

“We were sparring and I got carried away...”

The eyebrow stayed raised. “What did you do to him in return?” Leia asked Mara.

“Nothing, Leia,” he said. “It wasn’t like that, I didn’t mean to—”

“It was a fair fight,” Mara assured Leia, which didn’t even begin to explain the situation. “He won.”

“Do you need ice?” Leia asked.

Mara demurred, and Luke decided he needed to extract himself from the conversation as quickly as possible. It was easy for him to make the excuse to play doting uncle and move over to where the twins were toddling around on the far side of the apartment’s spacious central living room under Han’s watchful eye.

When he looked back over, Chewie was standing at the entrance to the dining area, a large platter of food forgotten in his hands as he listened intently to Mara, who was gesturing as she described the match in what appeared to be some detail. He caught Chewie saying _his face looks fine,_ so apparently his entire family had assumed that if he’d done that to her, she would have taken it out of his skin. And she hadn’t. She insisted that he’d won the match. He didn’t understand what was going on in her head at all.

“Hey, what are you sulking about?” Han asked as he ambled over to scoop up Jaina.

Luke picked up Jacen as he considered his answer. “I—I feel bad about what happened with Mara.”

“Because you gave her a shiner?”

“Yeah. I wasn’t going to resort to hand to hand—” He hadn’t _promised_ , but he felt like it had been implied. “Then I used it to beat her. I shouldn’t have hit her in the face. I—just feel bad about the whole thing.”

Han glanced across the room. “She looks okay to me.”

“It’s _Mara_. Does she ever let me get away with anything? With beating her in a sparring match?”

“Good point.”

They moved into the dining room and took seats around a large round table made from heavy Kashyyyk hardwood. “Blaster proof,” Han had told Luke grimly when they’d moved to the apartment after their old one had been destroyed in the attempted kidnapping during the Thrawn crisis. Luke knew that Leia would probably eat all her meals standing up at the counter, reading a datapad, but Han insisted that since they’d spent the money on a good dining room table, they might as well use it.

“Winter’s at a concert with Tycho,” Leia explained when Winter failed to appear from her wing of the sprawling apartment. Chewie had Jacen perched in his lap and Han had pulled Jaina’s high chair next to his, Leia sitting between them. Luke found himself on Mara’s left side so that when he turned toward her he could see the bruise forming on the side of her face.

“How’s the Jedi hunt going?” Han asked as they began to eat.

“It’s been good,” Luke said, spearing a pickled alba root with his fork. “I’ve been interviewing some interesting candidates…” Just not the one he’d hoped for, he thought, forcing himself not to look over at Mara.

“You know you’re going to have to start nailing down the practicalities soon,” Leia said. “Refurbishing the base for a start, and then furnishing it to accommodate your students. We’ve got to get the finances straightened out, too—”

“Watch out, Jaina,” Han murmured to the toddler, “Mommy’s going into Councillor mode.”

From the way Han shifted in his seat, Luke was fairly certain Leia had kicked him under the table. They were both suppressing grins.

Mara, however, seemed interested in the direction the conversation had taken. “Do you have suppliers yet? Yavin’s not on any of the major supply routes. Are you going to hire independent or have you worked out a deal with the NR?”

Han raised his eyebrows. “Mara might have some contacts in the shipping business, you know.”

Chewie made a huffing laugh. Luke glanced at Mara to gage her reaction but she’d turned to say something to Han, and his eye was caught by the graceful curl of her ear. She even had nice ears.

The worst part—no, punching her the face had been the worst part, he reminded himself—was that the match, the match in which _he’d injured her,_ had been _exhilarating_. She’d been mesmerizing in motion. It had been a joy to watch her fight and he’d relished the challenge of meeting an opponent that could keep him on his toes. She didn’t have his training or power, but she made up for it with a lifetime of combat training and vicious instincts.

It was breathtakingly attractive.

And then he’d gone and ruined everything. Even though he still had her friendship (and that meant the world to him), he’d spoiled his chances of their relationship becoming anything more. And he wanted more, he wanted more from the fragile connection they’d made at Wayland, and now he’d certainly destroyed that with one careless blow. What woman would agree to date a man who had clocked her over a sparring match?

“—Of course I’m going to Yavin—” she was saying to Han.

It took a minute for Luke’s brain to catch up. “Really? You’d join the academy?”

“I have to rearrange my schedule first,” she said. “I want to keep training with you. You’re a good teacher.”

“I’m not so sure of that sometimes.” Luke looked back down to his dinner. “Even after what happened today?” He didn’t look at her swollen eye.

“Especially after today. You didn’t hold back or coddle me.”

“I could have proved that point without—punching you in the face.”

“You showed me that even with my combat skills, it’s not enough. It’s a good lesson.”

He looked up again, into her steady gaze. He wasn’t sure _what_ to think, now.

She really didn’t seem to hold any ill will against him at all. She’d gone from grudgingly receiving his instruction to— _finally_ —wholeheartedly accepting his role as her teacher and while he should have been overjoyed, he just felt worse. The nearly imperceptible shifting of their roles only muddled the situation; it would probably be inappropriate to bring up his feelings for her now.

As if their relationship wasn’t complicated enough.

He glanced away. Across the table, Leia and Han had their eyes fixed on him and Mara, still chewing their food. Jaina took the opportunity afforded by her father’s split attention to smear a handful of purple mash across his face.

Leia and Han’s attention shifted away, Han sniping at Chewie’s dry comment about the mash Han was now wearing all over his face being an improvement, and Leia helping him with Jaina.

“Have you looked at that list of possible sponsors I sent you?” Leia asked, after she’d helped Han settle Jaina down, and the conversation returned to the minutiae of planning the future academy, which apparently included, Luke had been alarmed to hear when Leia had first broached the subject, lots of time spent making nice with wealthy patrons.

After dinner Han and Leia took the twins off to their nursery and Mara slipped out while Luke was caught up in a conversation with Chewie, and he missed the chance to speak with her again. He left for his apartment alone, his mind restlessly sifting through the events of the day.

He still wasn’t sure where he stood with her.

\- -

The incident troubled Luke for days. He was still thinking about it a few days after the match while tinkering on his X-wing in the hanger that he and Han and his friends all used to dock their personal ships while they were on Coruscant. Artoo whistled a heads-up that someone was looking for him, and when Luke climbed out of the cockpit he found Aves and Dankin approaching his ship. That was odd. They looked uneasy and somewhat out of place on NR property, and Luke worried for a second that something had happened to Mara, before dismissing it. There was no reason to think that Karrde’s crew would seek him out if Mara was in trouble, which still begged the question as to  _why_ they were looking for him at all.

“Hey, Skywalker,” Aves greeted him.

“Aves, Dankin, good to see you. Can I help you with something?”

The two men exchanged glances. “We need to you to settle bet,” Aves said.

“A bet?” Luke’s heart sunk a little. He’d gotten used to questions about whether he had the ability to predict the upcoming smashball finals, or podraces, or whatever the most popular local sport was, and he had a whole speech already prepared about how that wasn’t how the Force worked—

“What happened to Mara’s face?” Aves asked.

“You know, the—” Dankin gestured to left eye in explanation. “She says you were there.”

“What did she tell you?” Luke asked, wary. If Mara had an excuse she wanted known at her place of work, he didn’t want to be the one that messed that up for her.

Aves snorted. “She said that you did it!”

Dakin chuckled. “Yeah, she _says_.”

“But Mara told you I—” _Hit her,_ Luke thought. “During a sparring match...”

“Yeah, but _that_ didn’t happen,” Dankin said.

Aves was shaking his head too. “She said you won? That didn’t happen.”

“Why not?” Absurdly, he felt annoyed at the implication that he couldn’t beat her in a match.

Their reasoning, however, took him by surprise: “Her face um, just, _lights up_ when she talks about it. Like she’s _happy_.”

“Yeah, it’s weird.”

“Ain’t natural.”

“That’s not what happens when someone beats her.”

“Nah, remember when Torve beat her at Disk-Risk?” The two men laughed again.

Luke had many, many questions. “So, I couldn’t have beaten her in a sparring match because Torve beat her at…Disk-Risk?” He didn’t even know what that _was._

“Yeah.” At his blank stare, Aves, elaborated. “It gets boring in-between runs, you know, and so  Ghent put Disk-Risk on all of our datapads. Everyone was playing.”

“It was just supposed to be fun,” Dankin grumbled.

“Yeah, and Mara found out that Torve had the top score. She tried to knock him off, and he beat her. She didn’t like that,” Aves said darkly.

“It was the Gorn Level, you _know,_ ” Dankin’s said. “The one with the Scorrian double cross?” Luke didn’t know. “You put your disk through the yammer-yoke and trick the Scorrian gatekeeper into a three-way trace-step?” Luke had _no idea_ what that meant.

“Mara tried to pod her disks to make a full Gorn,” Aves continued. They both shook their heads. “Big mistake. Torve bypassed her play, knocked her back two levels, and won top score.” They sighed, overcome by the memory. “So she’s just unbearable for a full three weeks—”

“I swear to Alderaan,” Dankin muttered. “I thought she was gonna airlock someone.”

“You know, we never saw her actually playing the game,” Aves went on. “But she must have been working at it. Three weeks in, and she wins a lock on all the top scores! No one wins a lock! A gammer-set, sure, but a lock? It just wasn’t fun after that.”

“Then Karrde had Ghent remove Disk-Risk because it was a security issue—” Dankin said.

“Uh.” Aves coughed. “Yeah, that was what he said. It was actually because of how Mara was—don’t say anything to her!”

“Really?” Dankin brightened. “I didn’t know that.”

It was probably time to steer them back on topic. “But Mara’s acting differently now—” Luke began.

“Yeah, like she’s _happy,”_ Aves said, as though Mara’s happiness was as improbable as rain on Tatooine.  

“She still isn’t nice to us,” Dankin muttered.

“And you’re placing bets? On what happened?”

“Yeah,” Aves continued, “Faughn’s got odds placed on this ex-client from Corellia who hates her, and _I_ think she had a run in with some Imperial sympathizers. Chin’s though, Chin’s is good: he says she pissed off an Ewok swoop gang again.”

 _“Ewok_ gang? Wait, _again?_ ”

“Yeah, Ewok swoop gang.”

This time, Luke understood all the words coming out of Aves’s mouth, but none of them made sense. “On Endor? _”_

“Nah, here on Coruscant. Buncha Ewoks live in the Penumbra sector, mid-level. I think the Black Moon Gang’s dominating now, right?” A nod of agreement from Dankin. “Used to be the Golden God Gang about a year ago. They’ve got the best swoop races this side of Coruscant, real brutal—” he cut himself off, clearly realizing mid-sentence who he was talking to.

“I won’t say anything to the sector police,” Luke assured him. “Or Leia.” He wasn’t entirely sure he’d keep that last promise.

“We all go down there, for the races,” Aves said. “When we’re on Coruscant, and some people race, too. Mara’s good and the Ewoks don’t like it. Chin figures she got in a dust up with one of them. Is that what happened? Did she kill the Ewok that got her in the face?”

 _What in Tatooine’s moons—_ “I didn’t even know that Mara was in illegal speeder bike races with Ewoks!” All he could do was shake his head in disbelief. “... _Ewoks?”_

“An Ewok flew in Rogue Squadron,” Aves pointed out. “They’re good pilots.”

“What? No, that was a prank…” Luke trailed off. Maybe it was better not to go into the details concerning that particular moment in Rogue Squadron’s history.

Dankin smacked Aves’s arm. “I _got_ it! Hutt cage fight!”

_“What?”_

“Yeah, tail to the face, I could see it,” Aves mused.

“I’m _sure_ that’s not a thing,” Luke said helplessly. “Nobody’s cage fighting _Hutts_ _—”_ That wasn’t even something that happened on Tatooine.

“Your sister did! There’s precedent!” Aves said triumphantly.

“That wasn’t—it wasn’t a cage fight—”

“Hey, next time, can you get us tickets?”

Luke gave up.

\- -

 _Of course_ he ran into Mara herself as he left the hanger later that afternoon. He winced when he saw the purple mark that spread across her cheekbone and around her left eye. She blinked at his reaction, confusion momentarily crossing her face as though she’d already forgotten the injury, and then the confusion faded with a shake of her head as if she’d dismissed it as irrelevant.

She got straight to the point. “Are you free? For another sparring session?”

“Another sparring match?” _Oh no_. A thrill ran through him which he quickly squashed down. A part of him wanted to jump at the chance to cross sabers with her again, to see her in action again, to feel her through the Force—but—“Right now?” He still needed to take some time to figure out exactly what he was going to do with his feelings for her, not to mention process the improbable and bizarre information her crew had passed on. 

She grimaced. “Karrde’s locked up my schedule for most of the week. This is the first time I’ve had an opening.”

“Meditation,” he blurted out. “You need to practice your meditation first.”

“What?”  

She stared at him as he babbled on. “I made a mistake, starting with sparring. We should have started with meditation. We've neglected that aspect of your training, and it's just as important for building your relationship with the Force.” He could _definitely_ use the opportunity to clear his head as well.

Her lip curled in distaste but she said, “Okay, sure. I’ve got another opening in two days; we can spar then.”

 _Oh no no no._ “This is just step one! It should be followed by five consecutive sections, taking you deeper into the Force. You’ve got to strengthen that connection before you pick up a lightsaber again. Five meditation sessions, maybe six.”

Mara looked appalled.

\- -

But the session proved disappointing. He could sense Mara’s restlessness and he struggled to remain focused. Meditation had provided no further insight beyond the obvious fact that something wasn’t right between them. He tried to latch onto that, to unravel the unspoken tension that had built up, but he just found himself caught back in a loop of regret. In cementing his role as a teacher any chance of approaching her on a personal level seemed to slide further out of his grasp. He didn’t want to lose her friendship, too. 

Han, when Luke sought him out, didn’t seem to grasp the problem at first.

“It seems like she likes you better since you punched her in the face,” he said. “She acted like you were best buddies at dinner.”

Han reached into a panel that he’d pried open and fussed with a pair of wires, twisting them into a tangled configuration that didn’t look safe to Luke. After jamming the tangle of wires back in again, Han snapped the panel shut and turned the machine over on the table. He pressed a button and a panel of rainbow lights flickered on and off as the twins’ toy let out a mangled tune and then abruptly died. Han frowned and flipped the toy back over again, prying the bottom panel open again.

“That’s—kind of the problem…”

“I think you’re just working yourself up over nothing. Doesn’t that sort of thing happen all the time when you’re sparring?”

“Sometimes,” Luke admitted reluctantly. “Yes, it does. But I shouldn’t have hit her in the head, I could’ve hurt her. Badly.”

“But you didn’t. It worked out okay.” Han shrugged. “You wouldn’t be losing sleep over punching any of your other students, would you? What’s it about Mara that’s got you so bent out of shape?” Han had a knowing glint in his eyes. Luke scowled. “Okay, so it’s not everyone’s idea of foreplay—”

_“Han.”_

“Now you sound like your sister.”

“Please don’t mention my sister and foreplay at the same time.”

Han grinned. “Suit yourself. Have you considered _not_ punching her in the face?”

Luke sighed, a rush of exasperated breath. “Then she’d just be angry at me for holding back.”

“No, you’re right,” Han nodded. “I think you made the right call.” He replaced a wire and hit the power button again.

Sparks erupted from the toy.

Han jerked back. “Huh,” he said. “Thought that would work.” When the toy had stopped sparking, he leaned back over it to try something else, waving a screwdriver in Luke’s direction. “Go on.”

“Mara…it takes so much for her to trust anyone. She sees me as a friend, as a _teacher,_ and I don’t want to risk that. And anyway, I don’t think Mara would ever consider… having a relationship with a mentor.”

She’d said something to him once, about how she respected and felt she owed Karrde, but would _never kriff him._ He thought back to what her crew had said about her, and about the satisfaction he’d felt right after the match, and it seemed more and more likely she had simply been pleased that he’d proven his worth as an adequate teacher, nothing more.

“Okay,” Han said. “I get it. You're not really sorry you hit her, you're just afraid you put her off.”

“But what do I do now?”

“I dunno, kid.”

Luke snorted. “Some help you are.”

“It seems to me like you’re just making up a list of things to worry about. Either she wants you or she doesn’t. You’ll figure it out. Aren’t Jedi supposed to be in touch with their feelings?”

Luke gave him an exasperated, and possibly slightly over-the-top sigh. The corner of Han’s mouth twitched up, but he didn’t look up from the guts of the toy. The machine lit up again, this time flashing in a random but steady pattern. “Hah!” Han said. The jingle started up again, tinny and loud, and after a few minutes Luke wished that Han hadn’t fixed the toy at all.

“I know,” Han said, making a face. “But Jaina _loves_ it.”

“Does _Leia_ love it too?”

Han looked sheepish. “I think she was the one who broke it.”

\- -

“You’ve been avoiding me!”

Mara bust through the doors of the training room. Startled, Luke stared at her for a moment before shutting down his lightsaber and sending the remote that had been hovering nearby back to its shelf with a glance.

“Mara…I don’t—”

“You _have_ been avoiding me. I sliced your training schedule. You deliberately altered it so it wouldn't overlap with mine!”

She dropped the bag she’d had slung across her shoulder at the door and yanked off her boots before stepping onto the mat and continuing determinedly across the space toward him.

“You _sliced_ into my schedule?” More than once, from the sound of it.

“Yes,” she said, as if that was perfectly normal behavior. “That's not the issue.”

“But—”

“What’s going on?” she demanded. “Why are you avoiding me?”

He studied her as he considered his answer; she did look genuinely irritated at him. The bruise across her cheekbone was beginning to take on a greenish-yellow hue.

“I shouldn’t have hit you in the face,” he finally said.  

“What are you talking about? Of course you should’ve.”

“Hitting you in the head was dangerous, and I could have seriously injured you. I’m your teacher. I should have held back, kept in control—”

“I didn’t want you to hold back!” Mara scoffed. “How am I supposed to learn if you hold back? I—” she stopped and paused as though she were struggling to find the right phrase. “You know that I would have lost respect for you if you hadn’t hit me.”

He nodded. That much he understood. But that didn’t make his actions right.

“You wouldn’t have held back if it had been a hand to hand match,” she continued. “Are you planning to hold back with your other students?”

“No…” Luke didn’t particularly _like_ the thought of striking any of his students, but she wasn’t wrong; it would happen again. “But it wasn’t supposed to be a hand to hand match,” he insisted, though all his rationalizations seemed like flimsy excuses under the force of her glare. “It was a lightsaber duel—if we’d been practicing hand to hand combat, it would have been different—”

 _“Would_ it?” she shot back sharply. Confusion spread across her face. “That isn’t what’s going on at all.”

And it wasn’t really, was it? Was there a way to say _I’m afraid I ruined my chance of getting into your pants by punching you in the face_ without sounding like a complete idiot, because he’d really like to know.

She continued staring at him, and he wondered what she was reading in his face. Whatever it was seemed to surprise her, her eyebrows raising; confusion giving way to realization. There was no way she could have picked that thought out of his head, but he couldn’t tell what conclusion she’d come to.

“Rematch, now,” she snapped, stripping off her jacket and tossing it aside.

“What?”

She unbuckled her holdout holster and belt and placed them carefully beside the mat, rising with her lightsaber in hand. Pacing back to the center of the room, she jerked her chin up in a signal for him to take his place opposite her.

“Mara, maybe we should talk—”

Her lightsaber sprung to life and she charged before he’d even finished his sentence. He snapped his blade up, catching her attack and swerving to the side.

He couldn’t help but move into a defense pattern. “I’m not going to learn anything if you hold back,” she shouted with a vicious stab in his direction. He knew she was right, and her face lit up when he thrust his blade forward and nearly disarmed her. They moved briskly across the mat, the clash of their lightsabers ringing in the air. It wasn’t long before she fell back on her usual combat techniques, attempting to kick his legs out from under him and very nearly succeeding.

Well, if that’s how they were going to play it.

He used the Force to shove her aside and saw from the flicker of surprise on her face that she hadn’t expected that. Before she could recover, he lashed a foot at her ankle and she went down, scrambling out of his reach before he could disarm her. Quick as hawk-bat, she was on her feet again, her face glowing with exhilaration, leaping back into the fight.

Luke spun his saber over his hand and caught her strike in a high parry. He flipped backward to avoid a swipe at his midsection, landing out of her reach. She didn’t give him any time to recover, lightsaber slashing ruthlessly into his guard.

She pressed in close as she’d done in the first match, a position Luke was sure he could use to his advantage. All it would take was a few heavy blows—but as their blades locked Mara abruptly shut down her saber, causing his own blade to swing wide as the resistance against it disappeared. He stumbled, momentarily thrown off balance, and before he could recover Mara had ducked under the wide arc of the lightsaber in a liquid movement, stepped under his guard and jerked his head down, her mouth meeting his as she kissed him roughly. His jaw dropped in surprise, and she used that opening to lick her way into his mouth.

“Mara?” he gasped, pulling out of the kiss to search her face. They were both breathing hard, her body so close to his he could feel the heat of it.

As he gaped at her, her left arm snaked backward and disarmed him with a quick twist, the green blade vanishing as she deactivated the lightsaber and claimed it as her own.

“Tràkata feint. I win,” she whispered with a wicked grin. “Keep _up,_ Skywalker.”

Now that both of his hands were free they fell to her hips, yanking her against him, channeling all the frustration of the last few days into the purpose of kissing her. He heard the sound his lightsaber hitting the mat and felt her hands dig into his hair.

A tingle in the Force was his only warning before she hooked a foot around his ankle and toppled him onto the floor. Her fist landed in the space where his head had been as he twisted out of the way just in time.

“No quarter, Skywalker,” she snapped. “Do you expect your enemies to hold back?”

He felt giddy with relief even as he kicked at her knee, knocking her off balance just enough to roll out of her reach. He'd never been happier to have completely misunderstood the situation.

She lunged for him again but this time he was ready and managed to flip her onto the ground. She hit the floor hard and he pinned her there, a hand on her shoulder and knee on her hip. She could call it a distraction technique, but—

“Would you have disarmed an actual opponent like that, Mara?” He saw the answer in her face and kissed her again.

Mara met his lips hungrily. “You’re too worried—” she gasped in between frantic kisses, “about what’s _appropriate_ —”

 _This_ was probably incredibly inappropriate, but somehow Luke couldn’t bring himself to care. There was a part of his mind that was singing _finally, finally_ —and there was a part of him growing increasingly hard as she lay pinned underneath him.

He slipped a hand under her tunic, cupping a breast. She made a sound like a choked-back whimper and arched into his touch. He’d barely worked his fingers under her bra when she threw her shoulder up and rolled, knocking him to the side and onto his back. She was on top of him in a flash, pinning _him_ down, her knees locked on either side of his waist.

She slithered down until her hips pressed against his, and she began rocking against him, grinding down on his cock, the friction making him moan and jerk his hips against her. The intoxicating rush of her arousal was bleeding through his shields; he hadn’t even gotten his pants off and _Force,_ there was no way he was going to last. He dug his fingers into her hair, pulling her head down so that he could kiss her sloppily as she rutted against him.

“Mara— _uhh…_ ” he groaned. She’d broken the kiss. “—don’t g— _oh—_ ” Her mouth was at his earlobe—the scrape of teeth like an electric shock—then her lips moved wetly down his neck to suck the skin where it curved into his shoulder. She bit down and he broke, coming hard and fast and shouting wordlessly as heat rushed up his spine.

He could feel her mouth leave his neck as her hair, worked loose from its braid, brushed against his face. “I win,” Mara purred in his ear. Luke laughed breathlessly. Mara Jade, competitive in bed? He was _shocked_.

She climbed off him and make as if to stroll off, as though she wasn’t still flushed with unfulfilled arousal, but Luke wasn’t about to let her get away. He was on his feet as fast as he could manage, crowding her against the wall, his lips at hers again and his hands fumbling with her trousers. She broke the kiss to suck in a gasp when he slid a finger into her, his thumb fumbling for her clit, the angle awkward with his hand stuffed down the front of her pants.

 _“Unh,_ there, _yes,”_ she grunted as he adjusted his touch. Her hand flew up to clutch at the nape of his neck as he pushed the collar of her shirt down so that he could mouth across her chest. She squirmed and bucked, making it hard for him to maintain a rhythm with his fingers. He bit at her collarbone to settle her, and to his delight, it worked; she gasped and stilled with a jerk. Her half-lidded eyes glittered up at him, dark with arousal.

She _growled_ in outrage when he slid his hand out from between her legs, a sound that transformed into a moan of approval when he dropped to his knees. He dragged her pants and underwear down over her bare feet, tossing the garments aside, and ran his palms up the soft curve of her hips, reveling in the shiver that coursed over her skin at his touch.  

“I've been thinking about this for months,” he admitted hoarsely.

She let loose a frustrated groan. “Get _on_ with it, Skywalker.” He grinned and pulled her right leg over his shoulder, and set about seeing what other sounds he could draw out of her.

She shouted as she came, her body jerking and shaking, blunt nails digging into his shoulder and scalp. He felt her knees give out and he caught her as she began to slide down the wall to the floor, scooping her onto his lap. Her head fell against his shoulder, breath quick against his collarbone.  

“So,” Luke said as soon as her breathing steadied. “Ewok biker gangs?”

Her head popped up from its resting place and she squinted up at him. “Who told you about that?”

_“The Black Moon Gang?”_

She wrinkled her nose and dropped her head back onto his shoulder. “On the way out. Everyone knows the Empire Killers are the ones to bet on.”

Luke snorted, still not entirely sure that the whole thing wasn’t an elaborate smuggler prank.

Though he would have been content to sit there a while, arms full of Mara Jade, she began to shift restlessly, and he reluctantly loosened his hold so that she could climb to her feet again. Instead of collecting her clothes she stood above him, stretching and rolling her her head from side to side. Her lips were swollen, the flush beginning to fade from her face and chest, her hair falling loose around her face. She still wore her tunic, rumpled and rucked up where her bra was askew. He tried to keep from staring below her waist, but there was an awful lot of leg on display.

He was sure she’d left him looking even more of a mess; the damp and sticky spot at the front of his pants was beginning to get uncomfortable. A smug look came over her face as looked down at him, her eyes lingering on his neck, and he reached up to touch the spot. She’d left visible bruises on _him_ this time, bruises that would certainly provoke comment from everyone they knew.

Han and Leia were never going to shut up about it.

“So,” Luke said. “We’re doing this again.” He didn’t state it as a question, though it was, and he couldn’t help the tiny flicker of fear that this had been a one-time thing for her.

“The sparring?” Mara tilted her head. “Or the fucking?”

_“Mara.”_

“Oh, we’re definitely doing it again.” She offered him a hand and pulled him to his feet. He stepped close, hands falling to her waist, as she tilted her head back to meet his mouth. He kissed her leisurely this time, taking the time to learn the feel of her lips against his. She finally broke away, easing back a bit to catch her breath again. He gently brushed a lock of hair off the bruise on her cheek.

She offered him the barest hint of a smile; just a slight tilt of her lips, and it warmed him all the way through.

\- -

\- -

“Would I lie,” Mara said haughtily, “About Luke Skywalker punching me in the face?”

Luke put his face in his hands as his wife stared down the senator from Ukio. Not _this._ Again. “Mara,” he said, muffled through his fingers. “You don't need to tell this story—” She’d clearly had too much to drink.

“I’ve simply never heard of this human mating ritual before,” Senator Piluʻu said, looking bemused.

“It’s not a human mating ritual—” Luke began.

“But we _did!_ Enthusiastically!” Mara said, stabbing her finger forward in emphasis, a gesture she’d picked up from Han. _“After_ he punched me in the face. That’s how I _knew_.”

 _Liar_ , he mouthed at her.

 _How dare you,_ she mouthed back, _I am not,_ or at least that’s what he thought she meant. Senator Piluʻu glanced back and forth between them, a baffled expression on his face.

This was the point in the conversation when Mara would always launch into an excruciatingly detailed explanation of the match, which tended to bore her audience more often than not, and Luke figured he might as well let her go on. He tuned out most of the narrative, though he was surprised at how avidly Senator Piluʻu followed Mara’s slightly drunken description of this particular “human mating ritual.”

There was something about the way Mara’s gaze kept drifting back over to him as she spoke…he made an excuse to the senator, caught her elbow and steered her just out of earshot.

“You’re getting drunk just to spite me!” It went without saying that she was telling _that_ story for the same purpose.

“Well,” Mara said.

“Mara!”

“This is the dullest reception _yet,”_ she said and jabbed him in the chest with a finger. She definitely reminded him of Han when she’d had too much to drink. _“You_ drug me here!”

“Mara,” he said, his voice heavy with not a small amount of sarcasm. “I love you more than life itself. But can you please not tell that story to people we need to lobby for support of the Academy?”

“You didn’t mind when I told it to the Ewoks!”

“Ewoks don’t speak basic!”

Most of her petulance was for show, and he knew she never let herself become more than slightly inebriated in public. It was a performance meant to provoke him, to bait some sort of reaction out of him. Probably because earlier that night he’d left her to deal with an Ithorian representative who could bore rocks to tears, and Mara wasn’t above a little petty revenge.

He moved slowly and deliberately into her personal space and her eyes flared with interest as he leaned to breathe in her ear: “One more hour. Then we can leave and go down to the training rooms for a rematch, and I’ll beat you again.”

“You’ll _try.”_

The smile he gave her aimed for teasing and landed on adoring instead, which just made her narrow her eyes suspiciously. He kissed her nose, she rolled her eyes, and they broke apart again, slipping back into the public personas they wore for the reception. More or less.

“Your Makashi riposte is getting sloppy,” she murmured as she hooked her hand into the crook of his elbow. “And anyway,” she sniffed, “you cheated last time.”

“I did _not,”_ he hissed.

“Master Skywalker! Can we have your opinion on the situation in the Quelii sector?” Luke found himself pulled into another conversation, small talk with the well-to-do of the New Republic a tedious but necessary part of the job of running the Jedi Academy.

But least Mara, as quick with a retort as she was with a lightsaber, was there beside him.


End file.
